JANUARY
1/1- The Apartment (Billy Wilder, 1960)
1/3- Cheap Thrills (E.L. Katz, 2013)
1/4- Little Women (CineArts) (Greta Gerwig, 2019)
Fleabag (3 episodes)
1/5- The Book of X by Sarah Rose Etter
1/7- Leviathan (Andrey Zyagintsev, 2014)
1/9- Bug (William Friedkin, 2006) (The Music Box w/ Michael Shannon and Tracy Letts Q and A!)
1/10- Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (Sam Dunn, 2010)
1/11- In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Parasite (Logan Theater) (Bong Jon-ho, 2019)
Ready or Not (Taylor Gillett, 2019)
1/14- Uncut Gems (CineArts) (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019)
1/15- Last Days by Brian Evenson
1/16- Goldman v Silverman (short by Josh and Benny Safdie)
North American Lake Monsters by Nathan Ballingrud
1/18- Daisies (Vera Chytilova, 1966)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
1/19- Wind River (Taylor Sheridan, 2017), The Outsider (2 episodes)
1/21- WHAT DID JACK DO? (short by David Lynch)
The Outsider (1 episode)
Thoroughbreds (Cory Finley, 2017)
1/22- Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)
1/24- Ill Will by Dan Chaon
1/25- Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)
1/26- Paul Schrader: Man In A Room
The Outsider (1 episode)
1/28- Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)
1/29- Fireworks (Takashi Kitano, 1997)
1/31- Epitaph of A Small Winner by Machado de Assis (tr. Gregory Rabassa)
FEBRUARY
1- The Outsider (1 episode)
Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971)
2- Combat Shock (Buddy Giovanazzo, 1986)
3- Anguish (Bigas Luna, 1987)
4- Dawn (Book 1 of the Xenogenesis Series) by Octavia Butler
5- The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963)
8- Doctor Sleep (Director's Cut) (Mike Flanagan, 2019)
Christine (Antonio Campos, 2016)
Matilda (Danny DeVito, 1996)
10- The Boss (Fernando DiLeo, 1973)
11- The Train (John Frankenheimer, 1964)
The Outsider (1 episode)
12- Freebie and the Bean (Richard Rush, 1974)
13- Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin
15- The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
16- Vigilante (William Lustig, 1982)
The Devil (Andrzej Zulawski, 1972)
17- The End of the Tour (James Ponsoldt, 2015)
18- I Love You to Death (Lawrence Kasdan, 1990)
In the Cold of the Night (Nico Mastoikas, 1990)
19- Alligator (Lewis Teague, 1980)
22- The Outsider (1 episode)
The Craft (Andrew Fleming, 1996)
23- Poetry (Lee Chang-dong, 2010)
24- Poor Pretty Eddie (Richard Robinson and David Worth, 1975)
Corruption (Roger Watkins, 1983)
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
25- The Outsider (1 episode)
27- Vice Squad (Gary Sherman, 1982)
Your Vice Is A Locked Room and I Have the Key (Sergio Martino, 1972)
29- A Place In the Sun (George Stevens, 1951)
The Shop Around the Corner (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940)
MARCH
1- Forbidden Zone (Richard Elfman, 1980)
2- Reflections of Evil (Damon Packard, 2002)
Blood and Flesh: The Reel Life and Ghastly Death of Al Adamson (David Gregory, 2019)
3- Better Call Saul (3 episodes)
Streets of Fire (Walter Hill, 1984)
4- The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke, 1978)
The Fifth Cord (Luigi Bazzoni, 1971)
7- The Outsider (1 episode)
Targets (Peter Bogdonavich, 1968)
The Invisible Man (Leigh Wannell, 2020)
8- The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933)
9- Pin (Sandor Stern, 1988)
Lorna the Exorcist (Jess Franco, 1974)
Better Call Saul (1 episode)
10- Tenement (Roberta Findlay, 1985)
12- Safe (Todd Haynes, 1995)
Hard Times (Walter Hill, 1975)
13- Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (Joseph Zito, 1984)
14- The Lady From Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947)
The Outsider (1 episode)
15- Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion (Shunya Ito, 1972)
LAST DAY AT JOB DUE TO COVID-19
16- A Bittersweet Life (Kim Jee-woon, 2005)
Ford v Ferrari (James Mangold, 2019)
17- Oasis (Lee Chang-dong, 2002)
Better Call Saul (1 episode)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974)
18- The Hateful Eight (extended version) (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)
Crazy Mama (Jonathan Demme, 1975)
The Lady In Red (Lewis Teague, 1979)
Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958)
19- The Lost City of Z (James Gray, 2017)
Miracle Mile (Steve DeJarnett, 1989)
Contagion (Steven Soderbergh, 2011)
Bloody Moon (Jess Franco, 1981)
20- Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (The Lonely Island, 2016)
Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019)
21- The Taking of Pelham 123 (Joseph Sargent, 1974)
Unstoppable (Tony Scott, 2010)
Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983)
I Know Where I'm Going! (Michael Powell and Emeric Pressberger, 1945)
22- Blue Vengeance (J. Christian Ingvordsen, 1989)
Raw Force (Edward D. Murphy, 1982)
The Telephone Book (David Weisman, Nelson Lyon, 1971)
23- Knife + Heart (Yann Gonzalez, 2018)
I Married A Witch (Rene Clair, 1942)
24- Better Call Saul (1 episode)
Killer Crocodile (Fabrizio De Angelis, 1989)
The Devil's Honey (Lucio Fulci, 1986)
Class of 1984 (Mark Lester, 1982)
25- The Hot Rock (Peter Yates, 1972)
Ocean's Eleven (Steven Soderbergh, 2001)
Nightbeast (Don Dohler, 1982)
Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)
26- Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, 2010)
News From Home (Chantal Akerman, 1977)
Cleon From 5 to 7 (Agnes Varda, 1962)
27- King of New York (Abel Ferrera, 1990)
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
28- That Obscure Object of Desire (Luis Bunuel, 1977)
Un Flic (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1972)
In the Mood For Melville
Coneheads (Steve Barron, 1993)
29- Dolls (Stuart Gordon, 1987)
Mindhunter (2 episodes)
Canoa: A Shameful Memory (Felipe Cazals, 1976)
30- Tammy and the T-Rex (Stewart Rafill, 1994)
Mindhunter (2 episodes)
31- Better Call Saul (1 episode)
The Big Gundown (Sergio Sollima, 1966)
Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of A Masterpiece by Michael Benson
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
Channel Four Documentary- 2001: The Making of A Myth
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Monday, March 30, 2020
Quarantine Days 10, 11 and 12
DAY 10: WOMEN FILMMAKERS
MEEK'S CUTOFF (2010)
This is the first film from Kelly Reichardt I've seen. Reichardt is a wonderful observer of place and character. For Meek's Cutoff, she took on the 1845 Oregon Trail. A wagon train of families hires a mountain man named Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains.
Reichardt employs a minimalism that manages to speak volumes over films from her male counterparts.
B+
NEWS FROM HOME (1977)
A pre-cursor to Reggio's Qatsi Trilogy and Chris Marker's Sans Soleil. Chantel Akerman's takes her observational aesthetic from Jeanne Dielman and applies it to an entire city. In this case New York.
Seeing America through the eyes of foreigners make us Americans be distant and intimately close at once. The only movie I could think of that pulls this off so well was Paris, Texas. Now I know of a second masterpiece.
A+
CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (1962)
French New Wave directors are hit or miss. Can't stand Godard but I gel well with Varda. There is such a vibrant energy to this movie. To be alive and alone in a city during the summer. One day.
A
DAY 11
KING OF NEW YORK (1990)
This movie was released in the same year as GoodFellas, Miller's Crossing, State of Grace and The Godfather Part III. It was called an abomination to Abel Ferrera's face in a Q and A at the New York Film Festival. Many audience members including Ferrera's own wife walked out. King of New York is too easily swept away and forgotten among the crime classics. One can even argue Ferrera's whole career is way too underrated.
Christopher Walken leads a cast of insanely talented actors. All before they hit it big. Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito, Paul Calderon and Steve Buscemi. As much as I love Walken in The Deer Hunter, The Dead Zone and even Batman Returns, King of New York is where I go to to get his full range. Ferrera lets him loose and it is an absolute delight to see.
A
DAY 12
THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977)
Bunuel's films about the upper class always reminded me of surrealist paintings hanging in an art museum. The museum itself is controlled with security, sensors and even the pictures have elegant frames around them. Yet within those frames are paintings that depict chaos. Unpredictability. Car bombs go off. A woman is drenched with a bucket of water while trying to board a train.
Bunuel's final film is freighted with eroticism and battle of the sexes. In an interview with Bunuel on his final film he said "In addition to the theme of the impossibility of truly possessing a woman's body, the film insists upon maintaining that climate of insecurity and imminent disaster- an atmosphere we all recognize, because it is our own."
It's a beautiful swan song to one of my favorite arthouse directors.
A
UN FLIC (1972)
Of all the French directors, Melville had the biggest impact on me. Just stepping back and seeing his influence on other directors, you start seeing the big picture of how filmmakers talk to each other through film.
Un Flic moves much faster than his other films. The 20 minute heist sequence in particular shows that he still got it.
Jean Pierre Melville's farewell to cinema.
A-
MEEK'S CUTOFF (2010)
This is the first film from Kelly Reichardt I've seen. Reichardt is a wonderful observer of place and character. For Meek's Cutoff, she took on the 1845 Oregon Trail. A wagon train of families hires a mountain man named Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains.
Reichardt employs a minimalism that manages to speak volumes over films from her male counterparts.
B+
NEWS FROM HOME (1977)
A pre-cursor to Reggio's Qatsi Trilogy and Chris Marker's Sans Soleil. Chantel Akerman's takes her observational aesthetic from Jeanne Dielman and applies it to an entire city. In this case New York.
Seeing America through the eyes of foreigners make us Americans be distant and intimately close at once. The only movie I could think of that pulls this off so well was Paris, Texas. Now I know of a second masterpiece.
A+
CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 (1962)
French New Wave directors are hit or miss. Can't stand Godard but I gel well with Varda. There is such a vibrant energy to this movie. To be alive and alone in a city during the summer. One day.
A
DAY 11
KING OF NEW YORK (1990)
This movie was released in the same year as GoodFellas, Miller's Crossing, State of Grace and The Godfather Part III. It was called an abomination to Abel Ferrera's face in a Q and A at the New York Film Festival. Many audience members including Ferrera's own wife walked out. King of New York is too easily swept away and forgotten among the crime classics. One can even argue Ferrera's whole career is way too underrated.
Christopher Walken leads a cast of insanely talented actors. All before they hit it big. Laurence Fishburne, David Caruso, Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito, Paul Calderon and Steve Buscemi. As much as I love Walken in The Deer Hunter, The Dead Zone and even Batman Returns, King of New York is where I go to to get his full range. Ferrera lets him loose and it is an absolute delight to see.
A
DAY 12
THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE (1977)
Bunuel's films about the upper class always reminded me of surrealist paintings hanging in an art museum. The museum itself is controlled with security, sensors and even the pictures have elegant frames around them. Yet within those frames are paintings that depict chaos. Unpredictability. Car bombs go off. A woman is drenched with a bucket of water while trying to board a train.
Bunuel's final film is freighted with eroticism and battle of the sexes. In an interview with Bunuel on his final film he said "In addition to the theme of the impossibility of truly possessing a woman's body, the film insists upon maintaining that climate of insecurity and imminent disaster- an atmosphere we all recognize, because it is our own."
It's a beautiful swan song to one of my favorite arthouse directors.
A
UN FLIC (1972)
Of all the French directors, Melville had the biggest impact on me. Just stepping back and seeing his influence on other directors, you start seeing the big picture of how filmmakers talk to each other through film.
Un Flic moves much faster than his other films. The 20 minute heist sequence in particular shows that he still got it.
Jean Pierre Melville's farewell to cinema.
A-
Thursday, March 26, 2020
Quarantine Day 9
DAY 9: HEISTS, LASERBLASTS AND ANARCHY
THE HOT ROCK (1972)
Every 70s movie should have George Segal in it. He is just so cool in this. You can tell the DNA of this is in Soderbergh's Ocean trilogy. In fact, I am certain Soderbergh watches this movie at least once a year as the tone of it is all over his filmography. Enormously entertaining caper.
B+
OCEAN'S ELEVEN (2001)
Brad Pitt eats. A lot.
Bar nuts, cheesburger, chewing gum, cotton candy, ice cream, lollipop, nachos and shrimp cocktails.
Soderbergh made a conscious decision to not have any violence in the picture. The word he would use in the DVD commentary is 'elegant'. The result is a movie with tons of repeat value.
A-
NIGHTBEAST (1982)
A rubber headed monster, no-budget gore effects, and a surreal sex scene. Don Dohler's tribute to rubber suit monster movies of the 50s delivers. Features a soundtrack from a then teenage J.J. Abrams.
B
JOKER (2019)
A movie where you have no stakes in it that lets you down is a lot less heartbreaking than the one you do have stakes in.
The mythos behind The Joker is just as important to me as The Batman mythos. It's the archetype that so many of my favorite villains link back to.
When Nolan was handed the reigns in 2004, he was then known as the guy who did Memento. Even Burton was known as the creator of Pee Wee and Beetlejuice before he took on the dark knight. Both directors brought a specific style. Burton with his German expressionism. Nolan with a neo-noir style that transformed into a Michael Mann-esque style by the time he did The Dark Knight. Yet the success of Nolan's style lay in the script staying true to the style the director wants to create.
You can tell that Todd Phillips believes with every bone in his body that he is making art here. You don't need moody strings to tell me this but you might just as well throw that on top of it.
You see it in the way he mimics a color pallette. The desperation in replicating a dingy style.
The performance of Joaquin is where the heartbreak comes in. Todd Phillips isn't really known for anything outside of his Hangover movies. Phoenix on the other hand create two of the best performances of the 10's: Freddie Quell in The Master and Joe in You Were Never Really Here. The latter being a vastly superior study in mental instability. His Theodore Twombly in Her was believable. His work in Inherent Vice as Doc Sportello was fascinating to watch. Even if that was a lesser PTA effort. If an actor ever deserved an MCP award this decade, it would be Joaquin Phoenix. Which brings us to his portrayal of The Joker. Or more specifically, Arthur Fleck. There's really only three times he is called The Joker. The mission statement Phillips had with the movie was to show one of these villains in the real world. Again, something that has already been done with better results (see: Watchmen). Shave the final 5 minutes from the movie and this movie could have been about anyone with mental instability. We don't really come to an recognizable moment from the Batman mythos until the ending.
Controversy abounded upon its release. Saying it would invoke riots and rile up an already incendiary incel culture. Instead of the feared razor sharp teeth so many high profile reviewers warned of, this movie attempts to gum you to death. There's nothing troubling or ambiguous about this movie. It's a centrist scold with a straightforward narrative. It isn't really saying he's justified in his mayhem. But it doesn't really condemn him. It ends up planting its flag right in the middle with a "who's to say?" answer. The kind of response from someone who wants to seem interesting but is ultimately hollow.
This is 90 minutes of George Costanza saying "We're living in a society!"
D
THE HOT ROCK (1972)
Every 70s movie should have George Segal in it. He is just so cool in this. You can tell the DNA of this is in Soderbergh's Ocean trilogy. In fact, I am certain Soderbergh watches this movie at least once a year as the tone of it is all over his filmography. Enormously entertaining caper.
B+
OCEAN'S ELEVEN (2001)
Brad Pitt eats. A lot.
Bar nuts, cheesburger, chewing gum, cotton candy, ice cream, lollipop, nachos and shrimp cocktails.
Soderbergh made a conscious decision to not have any violence in the picture. The word he would use in the DVD commentary is 'elegant'. The result is a movie with tons of repeat value.
A-
NIGHTBEAST (1982)
A rubber headed monster, no-budget gore effects, and a surreal sex scene. Don Dohler's tribute to rubber suit monster movies of the 50s delivers. Features a soundtrack from a then teenage J.J. Abrams.
B
JOKER (2019)
A movie where you have no stakes in it that lets you down is a lot less heartbreaking than the one you do have stakes in.
The mythos behind The Joker is just as important to me as The Batman mythos. It's the archetype that so many of my favorite villains link back to.
When Nolan was handed the reigns in 2004, he was then known as the guy who did Memento. Even Burton was known as the creator of Pee Wee and Beetlejuice before he took on the dark knight. Both directors brought a specific style. Burton with his German expressionism. Nolan with a neo-noir style that transformed into a Michael Mann-esque style by the time he did The Dark Knight. Yet the success of Nolan's style lay in the script staying true to the style the director wants to create.
You can tell that Todd Phillips believes with every bone in his body that he is making art here. You don't need moody strings to tell me this but you might just as well throw that on top of it.
You see it in the way he mimics a color pallette. The desperation in replicating a dingy style.
The performance of Joaquin is where the heartbreak comes in. Todd Phillips isn't really known for anything outside of his Hangover movies. Phoenix on the other hand create two of the best performances of the 10's: Freddie Quell in The Master and Joe in You Were Never Really Here. The latter being a vastly superior study in mental instability. His Theodore Twombly in Her was believable. His work in Inherent Vice as Doc Sportello was fascinating to watch. Even if that was a lesser PTA effort. If an actor ever deserved an MCP award this decade, it would be Joaquin Phoenix. Which brings us to his portrayal of The Joker. Or more specifically, Arthur Fleck. There's really only three times he is called The Joker. The mission statement Phillips had with the movie was to show one of these villains in the real world. Again, something that has already been done with better results (see: Watchmen). Shave the final 5 minutes from the movie and this movie could have been about anyone with mental instability. We don't really come to an recognizable moment from the Batman mythos until the ending.
Controversy abounded upon its release. Saying it would invoke riots and rile up an already incendiary incel culture. Instead of the feared razor sharp teeth so many high profile reviewers warned of, this movie attempts to gum you to death. There's nothing troubling or ambiguous about this movie. It's a centrist scold with a straightforward narrative. It isn't really saying he's justified in his mayhem. But it doesn't really condemn him. It ends up planting its flag right in the middle with a "who's to say?" answer. The kind of response from someone who wants to seem interesting but is ultimately hollow.
This is 90 minutes of George Costanza saying "We're living in a society!"
D
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Quarantine: Days 6, 7 and 8
DAY 6: VINEGAR SYNDROME SUNDAY
HORROR: BLUE VENGEANCE (1989)
A New York City cop/action movie with horror elements. The plot made this an instant purchase. An escaped prison inmate with paranoid visions and obsessions with a heavy metal band, tracks down the members of said band one by one.
B/B+
ACTION: RAW FORCE (1982)
Can a movie have too much? I kept thinking this to myself while the movie unleased gratuitous nudity, terrorists hijaking a cruise ship, and samurai zombies. It kept one upping itself. Normally this is a good thing. It's what you want in exploitation. It just didn't click with me as well as it did in other movies.
B
EROTICA: THE TELEPHONE BOOK (1971)
Where the hell did this come from?
On the level of Putney Swope but even more formally inventive. The writer and director went on to write for Saturday Night Live. That should give you the type of freewheeling comedy you get here. Punched up with loads of sexploitation. There is a bit here with a coin machine that ranks up there with the best comedy from the decade.
Films like these are why I love Vinegar Syndrome.
A-
DAY 7
KNIFE + HEART
Gay porn. Giallo influences. De Palma influences. A dildo knife. It's got a lot going for it.
B+/B
I MARRIED A WITCH
The best of the 40s comedies were largely dominated by Preston Sturges and Ernst Lubitsch. Rene Clair managed to churn this one out with the lovely Veronica Lake.
B+
DAY 8
KILLER CROCODILE (1989)
A Jaws rip off thru and thru. There's a period in the late 80's and early 90's where Italian genre filmmakers would nototiously take a popular property and exploit the hell out of it. Bruno Mattei did it with Shocking Dark (his riff on Aliens and Terminator 2). Claudio Fragasso did it with Night Killer (aka Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3). Fabrizio De Angelis gives us his Jaws rip off with Killer Crocodile. The clincher is a Riz Ortolani score that blatantly rips John Williams' score.
B-
THE DEVIL'S HONEY (1986)
"Saxo-mophone" -Homer Simpson
When Italian horror was on its way out, Fulci decided to turn to sexploitation. This was during a period where he split with his writing partner Dardano Sacchetti. Fulci had no one to reign him in. So his latter career took off in terms of craziness. This movie's first 20 minutes has someone playing a saxophone into a woman's vagina.
B
CLASS OF 1984 (1982)
"The future is doomed." A quote I fully expect to see scrawled in the margins of this screenplay. Watching the movie, I didn't know who to hate more: Stegman and his merry band of anarchists or the administration that turned a blind eye to their chaos. The kids are definitely not alright.
Belongs on the shelf between A Clockwork Orange and Over the Edge.
B+
HORROR: BLUE VENGEANCE (1989)
A New York City cop/action movie with horror elements. The plot made this an instant purchase. An escaped prison inmate with paranoid visions and obsessions with a heavy metal band, tracks down the members of said band one by one.
B/B+
ACTION: RAW FORCE (1982)
Can a movie have too much? I kept thinking this to myself while the movie unleased gratuitous nudity, terrorists hijaking a cruise ship, and samurai zombies. It kept one upping itself. Normally this is a good thing. It's what you want in exploitation. It just didn't click with me as well as it did in other movies.
B
EROTICA: THE TELEPHONE BOOK (1971)
Where the hell did this come from?
On the level of Putney Swope but even more formally inventive. The writer and director went on to write for Saturday Night Live. That should give you the type of freewheeling comedy you get here. Punched up with loads of sexploitation. There is a bit here with a coin machine that ranks up there with the best comedy from the decade.
Films like these are why I love Vinegar Syndrome.
A-
DAY 7
KNIFE + HEART
Gay porn. Giallo influences. De Palma influences. A dildo knife. It's got a lot going for it.
B+/B
I MARRIED A WITCH
The best of the 40s comedies were largely dominated by Preston Sturges and Ernst Lubitsch. Rene Clair managed to churn this one out with the lovely Veronica Lake.
B+
DAY 8
KILLER CROCODILE (1989)
A Jaws rip off thru and thru. There's a period in the late 80's and early 90's where Italian genre filmmakers would nototiously take a popular property and exploit the hell out of it. Bruno Mattei did it with Shocking Dark (his riff on Aliens and Terminator 2). Claudio Fragasso did it with Night Killer (aka Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3). Fabrizio De Angelis gives us his Jaws rip off with Killer Crocodile. The clincher is a Riz Ortolani score that blatantly rips John Williams' score.
B-
THE DEVIL'S HONEY (1986)
"Saxo-mophone" -Homer Simpson
When Italian horror was on its way out, Fulci decided to turn to sexploitation. This was during a period where he split with his writing partner Dardano Sacchetti. Fulci had no one to reign him in. So his latter career took off in terms of craziness. This movie's first 20 minutes has someone playing a saxophone into a woman's vagina.
B
CLASS OF 1984 (1982)
"The future is doomed." A quote I fully expect to see scrawled in the margins of this screenplay. Watching the movie, I didn't know who to hate more: Stegman and his merry band of anarchists or the administration that turned a blind eye to their chaos. The kids are definitely not alright.
Belongs on the shelf between A Clockwork Orange and Over the Edge.
B+
Saturday, March 21, 2020
Quarantine: Days 3, 4 and 5
DAY 3
MIRACLE MILE (1989)
Steve DeJarnett managed to make a treasure largely forgotten. Thanks to Kino Lorber's blu ray edition, people are able to rediscover this hidden gem. Miracle Mile is a meet cute scenario that morphs into a countdown to the nuclear apocalypse. Most romantic nuclear annihilation movie of all time? You be the judge.
This review does a better job than me at selling it
A
CONTAGION (2011)
You don't really know what you're going to get when you pop in a Soderbergh movie. A heist picture, a biopic, a period piece, an action/revenge flick. Not to mention his variety of experimental films. The one thing you can count on is his precision.
Medical dramas that document pandemics, viruses, crises are in short supply. The good ones (see: And the Band Played On) in even shorter supply. The COVID-19 virus has gotten many people hunkering down and watching Contagion. A curveball of black humor toward Sode's movie.
More to come on a decade best of list (yeah, I know I know. I'm workin' on it)
A+
BLOODY MOON (1981)
After Friday the 13th, every studio was scrambling to cash in. 1981 saw an explosion of the slasher film. Jess Franco, the king of Euro sleaze, was commissioned to make one and the result was everything you would expect. Gratuitous nudity, copious violence, and enough sleaze to delight any patron of a 42nd street theater. The centerpiece of this sleazefest is the stone mill power saw sequence. You don't need me to go into any more detail than that to know if you want to see this or not.
B+
DAY 4
POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING (2016)
The Lonely Island music videos produced in the late oughts and early 10s were a life raft to the largely unforgettable SNL skits from those decades. They tapped into what Spinal Tap tapped (no pun intended) into in the 80s. That they would make Popstar only furthers this.
The only other satire this decade that has made me laugh harder than this is What We Do In the Shadows.
A
UNCUT GEMS (2019)
Fourth time seeing this movie. In my Top 10 of the 2010's and just recently slipped into my Top 100.
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 (1974)
On par with Die Hard in terms of how it is able to squeeze so much tension tension from a fairly straightforward plot. A bunch of armed men hijack a subway car and demand a $1 million. It's constantly moving between the train, the cops up top, the control board, and the mayor's office. You see all aspects of the heist. Giving it a momentum that doesn't let up until the final frame.
First off, let's look at the crew: the movie is propelled with a great finger thumping, shoe tapping score by David Shire. Imagine being given the task to score both this and The Conversation in the same year. In charge of the editing is Jerry Greenberg. The guy behind The French Connection and Apocalypse Now. With these hands behind the editing, you know there is not a moment wasted and zero fat. The Director of Phtotography Owen Roizman shot The French Connection, The Exorcist, Network and Straight Time.
Secondly, let's look at the cast. Robert Shaw plays a take-no-shit villain who leads 3 other men. Two of which are played by Martin Balsam and Hector Elizondo. Our hero is Lt. Garver as played by Walter Matthau. An actor who really hit his stride in the 70s. (A year before this he played the titular character in Charley Varrick.) Tom Pedi plays an over the top station chief. Rounding out the cast is Jerry Stiller. Yes, George Costanza's dad plays one of the men on the control board. How much more New York can you possibly get?
Howard Hawks says you need three great scenes to make a movie. This one has at least a dozen. The flu ridden mayor may go down as one of the more honest portrayals of a politican on screen.
Joseph Sargent made one of the best one two punches in film history- before this, he made White Lightning. This movie has been mined from for the past 40+ years. Right down to the villain's ways of color coding their names. When people look at 70s crime films, Dirty Harry, French Connection, The Godfather and Taxi Driver inevitably come up. This film is every bit as worthy as those.
Gesundheit.
A+
UNSTOPPABLE (2010)
Ridley Vs. Tony. Take your side.
Ridley has never really impressed me visually. Everything post- Blade Runner...hell, everything post Alien has had a bland visual dynamic. I would choose Alien over anything Tony has done. Even from a directorial perspective, the atmosphere Ridley gives the film is unmatched. His better works after Alien were largely carried by interesting scripts: American Gangster (Steven Zaillian, Mark Jacobson), Prometheus (Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof), and woefully underrated and misunderstood The Counselor (Cormac McCarthy).
With Tony, you get a much more consistent visual pallette. When you pop in a Tony Scott directed movie you know it's a Tony Scott movie. Lots of blue filter. Smoke. I'm thinking specifically The Hunger and Beverly Hills Cop 2. The stuff he's done in his later career has him experimenting. Domino, Deja Vu, Man On Fire all being examples. In the last two, Tony finally finding his muse: Denzel Washington.
The cleverness of this movie is that it a runaway train movie without any of the heist baggage that would usually take up the first and second acts. Tony's complete control over the production from design to editing to pacing shows. The kinetic movement in his movies perfectly suit the script here.
Tony Scott unfortunately passed in 2012. He bowed out with one of the highpoints of his career.
A/A-
LOCAL HERO (1983)
After two pulse pounding train movies, this gentle whisper of a movie is exactly what I needed.
Mark Knopfler's score can almost be considered the main character of the movie. Local Hero is deliberately paced to emphasize the sleepy small town life against the pointlessness of corporate life and fast business. This ode to tranquility features beautiful scenery to accentuate the somber lullaby of rural Scotland.
A
I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING! (1945)
No other filmmaker or in this case filmmakers were as consistent in terms of quality in the 1940s than the Archers. Consisting of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, their films sang with color and movement. A Matter of Life and Death, The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Black Narcissus have all had varying spots in my top 100 at one time or another. And they are the go to films if I was ever was to show someone the vibrancy of a Technicolor film.
Powell's astounding knack for visuals and Pressburger's wit are here even with the film's black and white aesthetic. The balance of sincerity and playfulness with which the Archers give themselves this film grants it a unique feel. This film, like all of their pictures, is a siren song beckoning you to fall in love with. Your heart will ache with a love of what is possible in cinema after you watch a film of theirs. I know mine always does.
Paul Thomas Anderson cites this as the biggest inspiration for Phantom Thread. When you get to the end it will all make sense.
A
MIRACLE MILE (1989)
Steve DeJarnett managed to make a treasure largely forgotten. Thanks to Kino Lorber's blu ray edition, people are able to rediscover this hidden gem. Miracle Mile is a meet cute scenario that morphs into a countdown to the nuclear apocalypse. Most romantic nuclear annihilation movie of all time? You be the judge.
This review does a better job than me at selling it
A
CONTAGION (2011)
You don't really know what you're going to get when you pop in a Soderbergh movie. A heist picture, a biopic, a period piece, an action/revenge flick. Not to mention his variety of experimental films. The one thing you can count on is his precision.
Medical dramas that document pandemics, viruses, crises are in short supply. The good ones (see: And the Band Played On) in even shorter supply. The COVID-19 virus has gotten many people hunkering down and watching Contagion. A curveball of black humor toward Sode's movie.
More to come on a decade best of list (yeah, I know I know. I'm workin' on it)
A+
BLOODY MOON (1981)
After Friday the 13th, every studio was scrambling to cash in. 1981 saw an explosion of the slasher film. Jess Franco, the king of Euro sleaze, was commissioned to make one and the result was everything you would expect. Gratuitous nudity, copious violence, and enough sleaze to delight any patron of a 42nd street theater. The centerpiece of this sleazefest is the stone mill power saw sequence. You don't need me to go into any more detail than that to know if you want to see this or not.
B+
DAY 4
POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING (2016)
The Lonely Island music videos produced in the late oughts and early 10s were a life raft to the largely unforgettable SNL skits from those decades. They tapped into what Spinal Tap tapped (no pun intended) into in the 80s. That they would make Popstar only furthers this.
The only other satire this decade that has made me laugh harder than this is What We Do In the Shadows.
A
UNCUT GEMS (2019)
Fourth time seeing this movie. In my Top 10 of the 2010's and just recently slipped into my Top 100.
THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3 (1974)
On par with Die Hard in terms of how it is able to squeeze so much tension tension from a fairly straightforward plot. A bunch of armed men hijack a subway car and demand a $1 million. It's constantly moving between the train, the cops up top, the control board, and the mayor's office. You see all aspects of the heist. Giving it a momentum that doesn't let up until the final frame.
First off, let's look at the crew: the movie is propelled with a great finger thumping, shoe tapping score by David Shire. Imagine being given the task to score both this and The Conversation in the same year. In charge of the editing is Jerry Greenberg. The guy behind The French Connection and Apocalypse Now. With these hands behind the editing, you know there is not a moment wasted and zero fat. The Director of Phtotography Owen Roizman shot The French Connection, The Exorcist, Network and Straight Time.
Secondly, let's look at the cast. Robert Shaw plays a take-no-shit villain who leads 3 other men. Two of which are played by Martin Balsam and Hector Elizondo. Our hero is Lt. Garver as played by Walter Matthau. An actor who really hit his stride in the 70s. (A year before this he played the titular character in Charley Varrick.) Tom Pedi plays an over the top station chief. Rounding out the cast is Jerry Stiller. Yes, George Costanza's dad plays one of the men on the control board. How much more New York can you possibly get?
Howard Hawks says you need three great scenes to make a movie. This one has at least a dozen. The flu ridden mayor may go down as one of the more honest portrayals of a politican on screen.
Joseph Sargent made one of the best one two punches in film history- before this, he made White Lightning. This movie has been mined from for the past 40+ years. Right down to the villain's ways of color coding their names. When people look at 70s crime films, Dirty Harry, French Connection, The Godfather and Taxi Driver inevitably come up. This film is every bit as worthy as those.
Gesundheit.
A+
UNSTOPPABLE (2010)
Ridley Vs. Tony. Take your side.
Ridley has never really impressed me visually. Everything post- Blade Runner...hell, everything post Alien has had a bland visual dynamic. I would choose Alien over anything Tony has done. Even from a directorial perspective, the atmosphere Ridley gives the film is unmatched. His better works after Alien were largely carried by interesting scripts: American Gangster (Steven Zaillian, Mark Jacobson), Prometheus (Jon Spaihts, Damon Lindelof), and woefully underrated and misunderstood The Counselor (Cormac McCarthy).
With Tony, you get a much more consistent visual pallette. When you pop in a Tony Scott directed movie you know it's a Tony Scott movie. Lots of blue filter. Smoke. I'm thinking specifically The Hunger and Beverly Hills Cop 2. The stuff he's done in his later career has him experimenting. Domino, Deja Vu, Man On Fire all being examples. In the last two, Tony finally finding his muse: Denzel Washington.
The cleverness of this movie is that it a runaway train movie without any of the heist baggage that would usually take up the first and second acts. Tony's complete control over the production from design to editing to pacing shows. The kinetic movement in his movies perfectly suit the script here.
Tony Scott unfortunately passed in 2012. He bowed out with one of the highpoints of his career.
A/A-
LOCAL HERO (1983)
After two pulse pounding train movies, this gentle whisper of a movie is exactly what I needed.
Mark Knopfler's score can almost be considered the main character of the movie. Local Hero is deliberately paced to emphasize the sleepy small town life against the pointlessness of corporate life and fast business. This ode to tranquility features beautiful scenery to accentuate the somber lullaby of rural Scotland.
A
I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING! (1945)
No other filmmaker or in this case filmmakers were as consistent in terms of quality in the 1940s than the Archers. Consisting of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, their films sang with color and movement. A Matter of Life and Death, The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Black Narcissus have all had varying spots in my top 100 at one time or another. And they are the go to films if I was ever was to show someone the vibrancy of a Technicolor film.
Powell's astounding knack for visuals and Pressburger's wit are here even with the film's black and white aesthetic. The balance of sincerity and playfulness with which the Archers give themselves this film grants it a unique feel. This film, like all of their pictures, is a siren song beckoning you to fall in love with. Your heart will ache with a love of what is possible in cinema after you watch a film of theirs. I know mine always does.
Paul Thomas Anderson cites this as the biggest inspiration for Phantom Thread. When you get to the end it will all make sense.
A
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Quarantine: Days 1 and 2
BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA (1974)
Sam Peckinpah always knows how to make you feel like you're in the dirt. His fin de sicle of the West, The Wild Bunch offered up a bloody climax and a clinic in cross cutting shootouts. Peckinpah's greatest strength was his this type editing combined with his use of slow motion.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia was reviled upon its release. "A graceless, dire vision of cheap humanity." Roger Ebert offered one of the few praiseworthy review going out of his way to proclaim Peckinpah was "making movies flat out, giving us a desperate character he clearly loves, and asking us to somehow see past the horror and the blood to the sad poem he's trying to write about the human condition."
It many ways, it's a film that says as much about the 70's as any other of Peckinpah's work of that era. The corporatism, corruption and the death of the individual's ability to be left alone. Warren Oates plays Benny, a down on his luck piano player who accepts a bounty to bring back the head of one Alfredo Garcia. Taking his head across Mexico and becoming increasingly insane along the way. In many ways, the movie is a road trip as a fever dream. We see the stops of Mexico along way and the humanity. Upon first seeing The Wild Bunch, the most striking image was a bunch of kids feed a scorpion to an army of ants. The kind of imagery littered throughout Alfredo Garcia.
Another flourish is that the movie gives a character actor in Warren Oates, the lead role. There's certain character actors who always choose to hang back. Thus their name. Only a handful are actually able to break out and carry a film. Phil Hoffman being one of the more contemporary examples.
Blood, sand, tequila and gunpowder are the types of smells you get when you watch this movie. I'm sure Sam wouldn't have had it any other way.
A+
Pairs well with: No Country For Old Men
THE HATEFUL EIGHT (EXTENDED VERSION) (2015)
The directors cut can be exploited for financial gain and has been many a time. A re-release in the theater promising 15 extra minutes or that DVD Director's Cut with an extra scene promising Unrated, juicy bits too hot for theaters. Not here.
Like the best Directors cuts (Aliens, Alien 3 and most recently Doctor Sleep), Tarantino's 8th film now moves to a new rhythm. Clocking in at 180 minutes, the canvas for his confined paranoid pot boiler is as ambitious as an Altman epic. With just 4 chapters instead of 8, the transitions we are so use to are somehow improved with this new cut.
Characters who rarely interacted before now do. Take for instance Chris Mannix and Joe Gage. Their dynamics are strengthened through an exchange early on in Minnie's Haberdashery. Joe Gage's character is given added depth and substantive menace with new scenes. Bob the Mexican is shown to be even chummier. The theatrical presented the film as Major Marquis Warren's story. The Extended Cut turns it into an ensemble film. A+
CRAZY MAMA (1975)
Imagine if American Graffiti crossed paths with Bonnie Clyde. Imagine if that meeting was directed by Jonathan Demme. The man whose manic energy in films like Something Wild is unmatched. Crazy Mama takes the sexual subversion of Something Wild and injects a crime plot into it.
Now I must stress that with Demme, plot is loose. Hanging out with the characters is the name of this game. All set to a wall to wall soundtrack of golden oldies. You see why a director like Paul Thomas Anderson gravitated toward this director so much. Demme's look at cadre of characters without an ounce of judgment the same way PT looked the strange little family of Boogie Nights.
The one thing I've seen in every review of Boogie Nights is how much it feels like Scorsese. The influences are definitely there- the rise and fall structure in particular- yet the beating heart of it involves family dynamics. His Demme influence is every bit a part of this as his influence from Scorsese. And if there ever was one to ask for proof of this, I'd show them Crazy Mama. B+
THE LADY IN RED (1979)
Movies about Dillinger end up one way: Dillinger shot to death in an alley. Michael Mann's Public Enemies being the most recent of the bunch. The script for The Lady In Red John Sayles poses a what if scenario: what if instead of following Dillinger the whole time, we followed the women who wore red. The women who signaled to police that it was Dillinger coming out of the Biograph on July 22, 1934. What if her meet up and eventual witnessing of the death of Dillinger was a bump in the road for her?
In a review for the New Beverly, Quentin Tarantino describes it as not only the most ambitious film Roger Corman and New World Pictures made, but the best script written for an exploitation movie. One of the most notable things about the picture is how Sayles takes the lead Pamela Sue Martin through just about every thirties genre picture: working girl in the big city, story of a prostitute, female convict in a prison and finally the gangster picture.
Boasting a strong supporting cast that includes Robert Conrad, Louise Fletcher, a menacing Christopher Lloyd, Dick Miller (in an particularly sleazy role) and an awesome cameo by Robert Forster. An actor who would go onto to star in Lewis Teague's next film Alligator. A role for which Tarantino would look at as impetus for casting him in Jackie Brown.
Lewis Teague is more well known for Alligator and Cujo. Two exceptional animal attack movies. With a fantastic genre-hopping script from John Sayles, Teague ended up making his finest work.
A/A-
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (1958)
I always marvel at the 'boy wonder' filmmakers. With the marvel comes a ball of anxiety right in my gut. PTA makes Hard Eight at 26. Soderbergh makes sex, lies and videotape and wins the Palme d'Or for it at 26. Why even try? When I found out Louis Malle made his stellar debut Elevator to the Gallows at the tender age of 24, I threw my hands up.
Of all the French directors of the New Wave, Malle is easily the most diverse. This came much to Francois Truffaut's frustration after Malle's release of The Fire Within had him trying to jam him into the auterist suit so many directors of the time felt more comfortable in.
He's done comedies (Zazie dans le metro), character studies (The Fire Within), coming of age films (Murmur of the Heart), made forays into surrealism (Black Moon), films about Nazi-occupied France (Au Revoir les Enfants), he's filmed monologues between two academic types (My Dinner With Andre) and made a bunch of documentaries about his travels to India.
All of this started with his 1958 debut. Let's not forget that this film wasn't just Malle's debut. It was our introduction to one of world cinema's leading leadies. Jeanne Moreau. She would find herself working with some of the top autuers of the time including Truffaut, Antonioni, and Welles.
This film follows a businessman who murders his employer, the husband of his mistress. A chain reaction of events follow. Maurice Roney and Jean Pierre Melville regular Lino Ventura round out the cast. The score by Miles Davis propels the whole story into motion right from the opening credits.
To create such a confident, assured crime picture at the age of 24 is a miracle. To have it be a prelude to a string of future classics is another.
A
Sam Peckinpah always knows how to make you feel like you're in the dirt. His fin de sicle of the West, The Wild Bunch offered up a bloody climax and a clinic in cross cutting shootouts. Peckinpah's greatest strength was his this type editing combined with his use of slow motion.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia was reviled upon its release. "A graceless, dire vision of cheap humanity." Roger Ebert offered one of the few praiseworthy review going out of his way to proclaim Peckinpah was "making movies flat out, giving us a desperate character he clearly loves, and asking us to somehow see past the horror and the blood to the sad poem he's trying to write about the human condition."
It many ways, it's a film that says as much about the 70's as any other of Peckinpah's work of that era. The corporatism, corruption and the death of the individual's ability to be left alone. Warren Oates plays Benny, a down on his luck piano player who accepts a bounty to bring back the head of one Alfredo Garcia. Taking his head across Mexico and becoming increasingly insane along the way. In many ways, the movie is a road trip as a fever dream. We see the stops of Mexico along way and the humanity. Upon first seeing The Wild Bunch, the most striking image was a bunch of kids feed a scorpion to an army of ants. The kind of imagery littered throughout Alfredo Garcia.
Another flourish is that the movie gives a character actor in Warren Oates, the lead role. There's certain character actors who always choose to hang back. Thus their name. Only a handful are actually able to break out and carry a film. Phil Hoffman being one of the more contemporary examples.
Blood, sand, tequila and gunpowder are the types of smells you get when you watch this movie. I'm sure Sam wouldn't have had it any other way.
A+
Pairs well with: No Country For Old Men
THE HATEFUL EIGHT (EXTENDED VERSION) (2015)
The directors cut can be exploited for financial gain and has been many a time. A re-release in the theater promising 15 extra minutes or that DVD Director's Cut with an extra scene promising Unrated, juicy bits too hot for theaters. Not here.
Like the best Directors cuts (Aliens, Alien 3 and most recently Doctor Sleep), Tarantino's 8th film now moves to a new rhythm. Clocking in at 180 minutes, the canvas for his confined paranoid pot boiler is as ambitious as an Altman epic. With just 4 chapters instead of 8, the transitions we are so use to are somehow improved with this new cut.
Characters who rarely interacted before now do. Take for instance Chris Mannix and Joe Gage. Their dynamics are strengthened through an exchange early on in Minnie's Haberdashery. Joe Gage's character is given added depth and substantive menace with new scenes. Bob the Mexican is shown to be even chummier. The theatrical presented the film as Major Marquis Warren's story. The Extended Cut turns it into an ensemble film. A+
CRAZY MAMA (1975)
Imagine if American Graffiti crossed paths with Bonnie Clyde. Imagine if that meeting was directed by Jonathan Demme. The man whose manic energy in films like Something Wild is unmatched. Crazy Mama takes the sexual subversion of Something Wild and injects a crime plot into it.
Now I must stress that with Demme, plot is loose. Hanging out with the characters is the name of this game. All set to a wall to wall soundtrack of golden oldies. You see why a director like Paul Thomas Anderson gravitated toward this director so much. Demme's look at cadre of characters without an ounce of judgment the same way PT looked the strange little family of Boogie Nights.
The one thing I've seen in every review of Boogie Nights is how much it feels like Scorsese. The influences are definitely there- the rise and fall structure in particular- yet the beating heart of it involves family dynamics. His Demme influence is every bit a part of this as his influence from Scorsese. And if there ever was one to ask for proof of this, I'd show them Crazy Mama. B+
THE LADY IN RED (1979)
Movies about Dillinger end up one way: Dillinger shot to death in an alley. Michael Mann's Public Enemies being the most recent of the bunch. The script for The Lady In Red John Sayles poses a what if scenario: what if instead of following Dillinger the whole time, we followed the women who wore red. The women who signaled to police that it was Dillinger coming out of the Biograph on July 22, 1934. What if her meet up and eventual witnessing of the death of Dillinger was a bump in the road for her?
In a review for the New Beverly, Quentin Tarantino describes it as not only the most ambitious film Roger Corman and New World Pictures made, but the best script written for an exploitation movie. One of the most notable things about the picture is how Sayles takes the lead Pamela Sue Martin through just about every thirties genre picture: working girl in the big city, story of a prostitute, female convict in a prison and finally the gangster picture.
Boasting a strong supporting cast that includes Robert Conrad, Louise Fletcher, a menacing Christopher Lloyd, Dick Miller (in an particularly sleazy role) and an awesome cameo by Robert Forster. An actor who would go onto to star in Lewis Teague's next film Alligator. A role for which Tarantino would look at as impetus for casting him in Jackie Brown.
Lewis Teague is more well known for Alligator and Cujo. Two exceptional animal attack movies. With a fantastic genre-hopping script from John Sayles, Teague ended up making his finest work.
A/A-
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS (1958)
I always marvel at the 'boy wonder' filmmakers. With the marvel comes a ball of anxiety right in my gut. PTA makes Hard Eight at 26. Soderbergh makes sex, lies and videotape and wins the Palme d'Or for it at 26. Why even try? When I found out Louis Malle made his stellar debut Elevator to the Gallows at the tender age of 24, I threw my hands up.
Of all the French directors of the New Wave, Malle is easily the most diverse. This came much to Francois Truffaut's frustration after Malle's release of The Fire Within had him trying to jam him into the auterist suit so many directors of the time felt more comfortable in.
He's done comedies (Zazie dans le metro), character studies (The Fire Within), coming of age films (Murmur of the Heart), made forays into surrealism (Black Moon), films about Nazi-occupied France (Au Revoir les Enfants), he's filmed monologues between two academic types (My Dinner With Andre) and made a bunch of documentaries about his travels to India.
All of this started with his 1958 debut. Let's not forget that this film wasn't just Malle's debut. It was our introduction to one of world cinema's leading leadies. Jeanne Moreau. She would find herself working with some of the top autuers of the time including Truffaut, Antonioni, and Welles.
This film follows a businessman who murders his employer, the husband of his mistress. A chain reaction of events follow. Maurice Roney and Jean Pierre Melville regular Lino Ventura round out the cast. The score by Miles Davis propels the whole story into motion right from the opening credits.
To create such a confident, assured crime picture at the age of 24 is a miracle. To have it be a prelude to a string of future classics is another.
A
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Exploitastic: Tenement (1985)
Roberta Findlay's career in filmmaking began when she met Michael Findlay. The couple turned moviemaking team would go onto directing roughies. Sexploitation films made on a low budget with gratuitous nudity. While she isn't the first women to dabble in these films (that honor goes to Doris Wishman) she is definitely one of the key figures in the genre. The 60s saw a decline in roughies and a rise in hardcore films. Roberta's career started veering more and more toward horror. Following some misfires in the genre, Roberta and Michael wound up making Snuff. A movie which Roberta saw no profits. At this stage, Roberta and Michael separated.
Roberta's career in sexploitation really took off. She ended up making her tribute to Repulsion, A Women's Torment (1977). Justine (1980), Liquid Assets (1982), and Mascara (1983), a movie she made with Henri Pachard all would follow suit. All of which are available through Vinegar Syndrome.
It wasn't until Tenement, the film we are here to discuss today, that she fully embraced no holds barred exploitation that would make even late 70's era Abel Ferrera tuck his tail between his legs and run.
In an interview with Findlay, she pinpoints her inspiration to her childhood. Living in the rat infested tenements in the South Bronx of New York. Now the surprising thing about Tenement is the date in which it was produced and released- 1985. It's a movie that came 10 years too late. A movie that could have played on any of the 42nd Street theaters. Instead it landed smack dab in the middle of the VHS era.
Tenement is unflinching and unforgettable. It also has a memorable role from Paul Calderon of Pulp Fiction.
You can buy Tenement on blu ray from Shriek Show.
Roberta's career in sexploitation really took off. She ended up making her tribute to Repulsion, A Women's Torment (1977). Justine (1980), Liquid Assets (1982), and Mascara (1983), a movie she made with Henri Pachard all would follow suit. All of which are available through Vinegar Syndrome.
It wasn't until Tenement, the film we are here to discuss today, that she fully embraced no holds barred exploitation that would make even late 70's era Abel Ferrera tuck his tail between his legs and run.
In an interview with Findlay, she pinpoints her inspiration to her childhood. Living in the rat infested tenements in the South Bronx of New York. Now the surprising thing about Tenement is the date in which it was produced and released- 1985. It's a movie that came 10 years too late. A movie that could have played on any of the 42nd Street theaters. Instead it landed smack dab in the middle of the VHS era.
Tenement is unflinching and unforgettable. It also has a memorable role from Paul Calderon of Pulp Fiction.
You can buy Tenement on blu ray from Shriek Show.
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